


cold metal

by js71



Series: Purgil Clan [5]
Category: Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Force Visions, Gen, Planet Bracca (Star Wars), The Jedi Didn't Deserve Order-66
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:34:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27510883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/js71/pseuds/js71
Summary: Cal stared, unable to look away from the kid. He’d been that short once. He’d been even shorter, and he’d always been the shortest. It was something that Caleb had always been able to fall back on when they argued. Until now.
Relationships: Cal Kestis & Caleb Dume
Series: Purgil Clan [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1983805
Comments: 5
Kudos: 83





	cold metal

The metal of the ladder was cold under his fingers, and it was dark. It whispered of revenge-filled anger, pain-filled fear, and too many other things, none of which Cal wanted to sense, had never wanted to sense. It was familiar in a bitter way, a smell in his nose that was too sharp and bit at him, a taste in his mouth that made him want to vomit.

He kept climbing anyway, the light on his wrist illuminating a thin section of the path ahead, the light stark white, too bright. The fear of being back in one of the ships threatened to take Cal over. He breathed through it, focusing on taking the next step and moving forwards.

The trapdoor at the top of the ladder was jammed, but Cal was alone, and he knew there were no security cameras in the area, and if any had been, the power to the section of the ship he was in had long ago been cut. It took little effort to open the hatch with a slight nudge of the Force. Cal found himself in a section of the vents, his shoulders narrowly fitting, even when he went sideways. After a few minutes of calming his nerves and shuffling through the vent shaft, he came out and dropped from a grate down into a hallway.

The echoes of the Force were louder, drawing him towards one door. A door that opened without Cal even touching anything. The scene he was faced with was painfully familiar, from the layout of the furniture to the sense of someone that had once been there There was a bed in one corner, which was still made, impossibly. There was a shelf, with nothing on it but dust and dirt. There was a desk and chair in another corner, the chair fallen on its side. Somehow, nobody had entered the room and disturbed it; the chair had only moved because the ship had. Cal knew.

He knew because the echoes slid into his presence, and he began to see double, seeing both the present and the past, seeing both an abandoned room and a set of quarters that were often used. Seeing both an empty space, and a room that was occupied by a boy, a human boy, with dark brown, almost black hair, and a braid, dressed in a light brown tunic, a set of robes on the bed behind him, discarded.

Cal stared, unable to look away from the kid. He’d been that short once. He’d been even shorter, and he’d always been the shortest. It was something that Caleb had always been able to fall back on when they argued. Until now. Because now, Cal was taller than Caleb had ever been.

It was a hollow thought. Almost like muscle memory, as a short, bright-haired boy came back into Cal’s mind for the first time in years, the single victory empty, unable to pull anything from it but a void of nothing. Because Caleb never got the chance to keep that victory, the victory that Cal seemingly stole right from under him. Cal found himself reaching towards the ghost of a boy, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, on the corner, his legs hanging, feet swinging, toes just barely touching the floor, the boots making soft scraping noises that Cal could hear even over the groans of the warship.

Caleb was reading through a data-pad, eyes moving with the text, humming a wordless, tuneless beat as he did, and not once did he look up, look at Cal, who was alone. Caleb’s finger hovered over the screen, and he brushed it across the smooth surface, starting on the next page of the textbook or history book or story or report or letter or whatever he might have read back then. Cal couldn’t remember what Caleb had been reading.

He was like a ghost. Cal could sense him, as if he was beyond a glass wall, or as if Cal was the ghost. As if he was the intruder, and he certainly felt like it. He wasn’t supposed to be in this moment, able to feel both the cold of the doorway and the hum of the ship’s power, able to feel a gaping hole in the Force and the content pulse of a padawan.

Then Caleb did look up, and it was so much worse. He looked right at Cal’s eyes, and even though Cal knew that his best friend hadn’t seen him in the doorway, had seen someone else, maybe even the person who would kill him in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, Cal didn’t know. But he met Cal’s eyes either way, and it felt like he had seen Cal there, no matter how many years in the past, no matter how many years were between the two of them, even if Cal was taller than him because Caleb had never gotten the chance to win that race when it came down to it.

Caleb did get to speak, and Cal did get to hear him. But even with years between them, even with death between them, the Order hadn’t stopped Caleb from speaking the few words he did at that moment, and the Order couldn’t prevent Cal from hearing what Caleb had said.

“You’re back!”

Cal broke, sliding to the floor, gasping for air he hadn’t realized he’d stopped breathing, his hands trembling even as he covered his face with them, shoulders shaking, even as he tried to stay calm, to hide the pain. If someone found him, like he was, he had no excuse. No phrase and expression that would lie and save him.

It only made him cry harder, the sobs choking up his chest and throat, making it painful to cry, and painful to breathe, but he couldn’t stop, doubling over on the ground, screaming his pain silently, but not letting any of it past the broken walls that protected him, unwilling to let himself die now, even if it felt like he was halfway there already.

Caleb should have been taller than him. Cal had always known that even when they were little kids. The competition between who was taller had been a joke, something consistent no matter what happened, no matter where they were. Caleb would have won in the end, should have won in the end.

Instead, he got blaster bolts in his back and stomach and head and throat, killing him and tearing that away. Just like they’d torn Jaro from Cal, they’d torn Caleb from him too.

He couldn’t cry for long. Several explorers were making their way through the ship, just like he had. He couldn’t risk one of them finding him as he was, a sobbing mess of emotions barely contained in the Force. He didn’t think he could trust any of them. They wouldn’t keep a Jedi secret, even if you paid them.

Cal dragged himself to his feet using the wall. He knew he still looked like shit, and there wasn’t much he could do about that. His throat tight, he stepped towards the desk awkwardly, one hand across his stomach, doubled over, unable to make himself stand straight.

The desk was bare. Maybe someone had cleared it out, but Cal found some things. A data-pad, which he slipped into the knapsack he’d brought to carry water and batteries for the flashlight. There was an electronic pen to use with it, and Cal slid that into a pocket. A small, empty flimsi notebook, only as long as Cal’s palm, which made him want to curl up into a ball and cry some more. How big would it have seemed to his younger self? To Caleb?

There was a pen with it, and he took them both, trying to find a place for them that wouldn’t get them wet, and ruin the book.

Caleb, since they’d been kids, had always hidden things in his pillowcase. Never under it, but in the pillowcase, between the fabric of the case and the pillow itself. It turned out that becoming a padawan hadn’t changed that habit and Cal pulled out a comm after only a moment of two of blindly searching.

It was hauntingly familiar, and with trembling hands, and blurry eyes, Cal slipped one hand into his pocket, and withdrew a nearly identical one. He’d never tried to call Caleb after the Order, but he’d always hoped that maybe Caleb would call him. 

It was pointless. Caleb would never have left the comm behind, he’d have hidden it at night. If they’d run at night, then Caleb would have brought it, that was why it was under the pillow, and not under the mattress. Cal sucked in a shuddering breath, fingers curling around the pair of comms, and they clinked against one another in his fist.

He paused at the door and resisted the urge to look back, at where Caleb had been. He closed his eyes, sending the comms in his hand, and swallowed hard. Caleb was gone, and there was no point in saying anything, but he did it anyway.

“Bye, Caleb.”

He didn’t look back. No matter how much he wanted to, no matter how strong the wail of the echoes became, Cal gritted his teeth, new tears welling up in his eyes as they closed, trying to stop the pain from showing. You couldn’t show pain on Bracca. Bracca would tear you apart.

Cal had already been torn apart, he supposed bitterly. His Master’s death had done that. The loss of his family had done that. And just now, Caleb had done that. He refused to let it happen again, he couldn’t let it happen again.

He didn’t want to die.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](https://js71.tumblr.com/post/624273937698865152/submit-requests)!


End file.
